One-Sided Slaughter

Chapter 42: One-Sided Slaughter

"Good stuff."

Qin Xia put the goggles away, tossed them into his backpack, and then calmly considered his next move.

After half a second of strategizing, Qin Xia pulled a smoke grenade from his backpack and forced himself to stay calm.

He needed to develop a temporary way to use his psychic power.

After a minute of confirming he could wield his psychic power as intended, he flashed forward, rapidly closing the distance to the enemy's position.

The Astartes' mobility was astonishing.

Much like the White Scars Astartes he'd seen as a child, Qin Xia acrobatically navigated the complex battlefield environment, easily and rapidly overcoming every obstacle between himself and his enemies.

He could gauge the thickness of a wall and choose to smash through it, or climb out a window to bypass it. In any case, he avoided the corridors and main entrances that might be heavily fortified.

Finally, the six individuals gathered together, clad in power armor and wielding beam cannons, their goggles scanning for enemies, heard the commotion and looked over.

They saw a figure with a heavy machine gun strapped to his back suddenly smash through a wall. Amidst a hail of shrapnel and debris spraying outwards, he raised a hand clutching a spherical object.

Furthermore, the entire person was covered in frost. Through their goggles, he appeared like the surrounding debris, emitting no heat.

"Fi—"

The man who instinctively tried to shout the order to fire was struck through the brain by the spherical object Qin Xia hurled. The object then detonated inside the unfortunate man's skull, sending countless fragments flying outwards and riddling the others with holes.

Qin Xia, completely unharmed, stood amidst the corpses, waved his hand gently, and the psychic barrier before him dissipated.

"Ugh… ugh…"

Qin Xia heard a sound like someone with a damaged respiratory system, struggling to breathe. He followed the sound and found a survivor on the ground.

This person, whose luck was questionable, lay on the ground, clutching a bleeding neck, gasping for air.

After the power armor's internal medical system injected him with a dose of medication, the man gradually regained his breath and weakly inquired, "Who… who are you?"

"The one who will make you all live in perpetual dread," Qin Xia replied. "The Butcher."

Qin Xia was no longer using his psychic power to interfere with anyone's vision, so the survivor on the ground recognized him as the Sorcerer who had gained fame in the arena.

Qin Xia removed the heavy machine gun from his back and brought it down with a thud on the survivor's head.

After killing another person, Qin Xia opened the heavy machine gun's magazine and found ten rounds remaining.

The ammunition for this heavy machine gun was thicker and longer than Qin Xia's fingers.

Qin Xia disassembled a round and inspected it.

The ammunition contained a concentrated liquid propellant. The exact principle was unknown, but Qin Xia's rapid ignition test revealed it to be highly explosive and the projectile to be brittle.

It was clearly a fragmentation round designed to kill personnel.

This information wasn't particularly useful, but Qin Xia tested and recorded it anyway, as it would help him identify military equipment on Nuceria.

After quickly gathering information, Qin Xia swiftly collected every usable and portable item from the corpses.

Pistols, explosives, beam cannons.

X-ray goggles.

Even the chips within the power armor and various mechanical parts that Qin Xia believed he would need later.

Finally, Qin Xia pulled out the cord from the power armor's lining, bundled the items he had collected and could carry, slung them over his shoulder, and continued forward.

After advancing a short distance, Qin Xia suddenly stopped.

His psychic premonition had returned.

After a quick scan of the premonition, Qin Xia's gaze shifted to the location revealed by the vision.

Then, a ripple appeared on the seemingly blank wall, and a completely transparent, cloth-like object fell to the ground, revealing the person hidden behind it.

"You're not in the arena right now?" Qin Xia asked, astonished, looking at the exposed fugitive before him.

The person was the arena manager.

"Why would I be in the arena?" the manager retorted. "This is a manor bestowed upon me by Patriarch of the Tal House."

"What did you do to make that lunatic hire me to kill you under such specific conditions?" Qin Xia's face seemed to be etched with confusion. "That lunatic offered three conditions for me to kill your entire family."

The manager was remarkably astute in the face of imminent death.

He frowned, thought for a moment, and then replied, "My master definitely didn't send you to kill me! There's another Tal here in this manor, my master's brother."

Qin Xia frowned, pondered for a few seconds, then looked up at the manager with a helpless yet schadenfreude-filled gaze. "I just deactivated my psychic camouflage. You saw me, you still have to die."

The manager was momentarily choked.

"However, I'm not here solely because of Patriarch of the Tal House's request, nor do I care about that lunatic's business."

"You might get to live a little longer," Qin Xia said, looking around. "By the way, do you have a library or anything?"

Hearing that Qin Xia had misunderstood Patriarch of the Tal House's orders, but didn't seem to take them seriously, the manager, who had always believed Qin Xia was working for Patriarch of the Tal House, gradually relaxed.

At least he wasn't going to act immediately. Even if this subordinate, who was secretly loyal to Patriarch of the Tal House, had misunderstood the orders, there was still room for negotiation.

"Yes," the manager nodded.

"Please," Qin Xia gestured for him to go ahead.

The person in charge led the way.

Qin Xia followed behind.

"So you secretly serve the Patriarch of the Tal House," the person in charge said as they walked. "No wonder he concealed the fact that you're a sorcerer, allowing the Butchers gladiatorial team to fight you unprepared."

"Why would you think I serve that lunatic?" Qin Xia asked, confused.

"He's not a lunatic. He's just a good person who's been hurt too much," the person in charge replied. "You don't know his past at all, so you think he's a cruel and cold tyrant, but he's not."

To explain the Patriarch of the Tal House to Qin Xia, the person in charge spoke incessantly, defending the best master in his eyes.

"When he was young, he was the sixty-seventh child in the previous Patriarch of the Tal House's family and wasn't very noticed."

"It's true that he became the patriarch because he was cunning… no, because he was smart and daring, but he didn't want to hurt anyone."

"He's actually very kind and empathetic."

Qin Xia, who patiently listened to the person in charge, kept rolling his eyes.

The person in charge couldn't see Qin Xia's expression and continued speaking.

If the owner of this gladiatorial arena's expression and demeanor were observed and analyzed by Qin Xia, he would understand that this not-so-intelligent person was speaking his true feelings.

"He's a noble, but he never mistreated his slaves. He even fell in love with a female slave."

"Can you believe it? Slaves are livestock, with only the distinction of male and female. But my master treats them like people."

"Just to clarify, the slaves I'm talking about aren't servants like me. I'm from a minor noble family, which qualifies me to be a servant. Slaves are far below me in status."

"…"

Qin Xia suddenly recalled the Patriarch of the Tal House's attitude towards his personal slaves during dinner.

He wasn't cruel, they chatted and laughed, and he even said thank you.

But Qin Xia also felt that this was just further proof of the lunatic's mental instability.

Perhaps the Patriarch of the Tal House had good qualities…

But he was still a madman.

Whether he was an enemy or a friend to this madman, both were terrifying prospects.

"Stop the nonsense," Qin Xia kicked the person in charge. "No matter what kind of person this Patriarch of the Tal House is, I'm going to slaughter your entire family, you so-called servant from a minor noble family. When it's time to deal with the Patriarch of the Tal House's family, I'll do the same, without any hesitation."